This is not one of those checklist articles or baseless Facebook quizzes (such as “Which Charles Manson follower are you?”). Sadly, I must admit indulging in this type of hack writing before.
No, this piece is about relation and inspiration—two forces that certainly moved the ancient Gnostics in their attempt to scissor the veils of illusion that comprised the veil of tears that comprised sensible reality.
The answer to this article’s title takes the form of a passage from one of my favored books on the Gnostics: The Secret Book of John: The Gnostic Gospel by Stevan Davies. Beyond a remarkable preparatory work on Gnosticism, Davies’ introduction elegantly encapsulates the Gnostic ethos. In my book, Voices of Gnosticism, Davies further uncovers the intention of any Gnosis with this lucid quote:
Gnosticism is about discovering the way that God has turned into you, and then realizing that if you can describe how it is that God turned into you, you can reverse the process.
This reminds me of when Carl Jung said, “For the Alchemist, the one primarily in need of redemption is not man, but the deity who is lost and sleeping in matter.”
Basically both Jung and Davies are stating this: God went crazy and became humanity; and now humanity (or part of humanity) tarries in the world of generation for a very long therapy session. As Davies explains in his book, human salvation and God’s psychotherapy are one and the same.
Gnostic theology can be more nuanced or more complicated than that, of course, depending on the school of thought. Nonetheless, if you gain relation or inspiration from this passage, then you might be truly a Gnostic:
Perhaps you are one of those remarkable people who experience an overpowering realization of the divinity of existence. You suddenly know that everything is divine and that within you lies an ocean of God. Will you know this all of the time and every day? No. You will crest and fall and submerge again into the mundane. The realization of divinity as the be-all and end-all, as the substance of your very self—that within which you live and move and have your being—does not dominate every day, although you wish it would. The ordinary world of aches and pains and approaching death, of trouble, temptation, sin, stress, and loss seems to rule almost all the time. And yet, sometimes you can seize what you seek and see glory everywhere and know yourself to be divine.
If you are one of those people, you are one of the Gnostics. You know what you truly are, that you are God, just as everyone else is. But, as a Gnostic, your existence in this ordinary and difficult world puzzles you. You ask, “How did I come to be here?” You don’t seem to belong here. You belong in a world, a realm of divinity. And it certainly seems that the divine realm is not everyday reality. But if, in full reality, everything that exists is God, why don’t we always know this? Why do some people never even think it possible to be what, in their depths, they really are? Why don’t we know who we are? How did we come to forget? What holds us back from perpetual realization of our divinity and what traps so many people into denying that their own divinity is even conceivable? These are the Gnostic’s questions. The Secret Book of John is the Gnostics’ answer.
Gnostics know that God is all and that they themselves are God. They experience this knowledge, this realization, and know that everyone else could share their experience. But they are continually thrown back into the seemingly hard material reality that tells them that they are merely flawed humans, kin to apes, doomed to die, ruled by a judgmental creator god who often does not know a fondness for people at all. Gnostics rebel against their churches and their priests, their Bible-based pastors whose obsession with God’s supposed desire to control behavior seems not to be what true religion is about. To Gnostics, true religion, elite spirituality, is a realization of the divinity of every person, an experience of ascent to the divine homeland. It is a knowledge of the way we once were as God and of the processes by which God came to be self-forgetful as to become us, mere human beings under the control of another lesser god. Those are the lesson taught in the Gnostic Gospel, the Secret Book of John.
Gnosticism is a religion of rebels, creative thinkers whose works were systematically destroyed by orthodox Christianity between the second and the sixth centuries C.E. Gnostics were the ‘other’ to the growth of orthodoxy; they lived in the home of heresy for they were the source of self-assertiveness against the Episcopal demand for sameness. They persisted in the shadows, in certain Sufi sets, in the Christian Cathar movement, and perhaps even among the Knights Templar and the Rosicrucian orders. Only recently have the old Gnostics spoken aloud again. Their speech resounds in the document of the Nag Hammadi Library buried seventeen hundred years ago in Upper Egypt, discovered again in 1945, and read today by spiritual seekers throughout the world. Their main document, their central myth, their theory of the origin and structure of reality is a text called the Secret Book of John. In this text we learn how God fell and became us and how, through knowing that story, we can return to glory and be absorbed again into God.
There is not right result or reaction to reading this—no score, except how you relate and are inspired. I couldn’t have said it better than this passage. Or perhaps remembered it better, in those times an ocean of God pours out of my heart to assist the psychotherapy of the Divine.
Updated May 20, 2016
Hi Miguel,
First and most of all: Thank you for all that you do, man. Posting and writing these articles, even if you are struggling to do so sometimes, means that hapless nomads like myself can wander in here and get a decent meal and a pull off the jug of living waters every now and again. I used to wonder, and often, if *anyone* else possibly felt like I did about my place in this world (or uncomfortable place in it) and if all of it was just some kind of mental illness I needed to keep quiet about when playing meet ‘n’ greet to those around me stuck on the merry-go-round of this golden ring we collectively refer to as ‘our life’.
On the journey of understanding what it means to be gnostic or to even know enough about how to use that word, you and me and everyone on this path can certainly do with some encouragement now and again. So, I appreciate you and if you can, please keep doing what you do, okay? You clearly have the focus and the vision to put this thing together enough to form this little oasis out amongst the internets where the hating angels of Gee(whiz)Ho-Hovah try to be the fishers of men and women for their little fighting beta-fish bowls of amusement.
Admittedly, I do feel pretty guilty some mornings driving on my 2 hour, one-way commute to work listening to your wonderful and insightful podcasts that I have downloaded from iTunes knowing that I have not tossed a gilder in the bucket for you, even though I do hear you ringin that bell, my man. But, I will remedy this when I can and try to help you keep on keepin on in some small way — when I can. Times now– (sigh)–they are tough and it’s a chore for most of us to try and keep body and soul together one more week and I know that a pat on the back does not help keep the lights on so—I get it, I do.
So, am I a gnostic? Hell, I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not? I’d like to think that I fit in somewhere and if I have to give it a name then, sure…let’s call it ‘gnostic’ then. What I am is a dude who is **tired** of fighting through the B.S. that is the glue that holds this reality together. I don’t understand the game and don’t see the point of it and I feel like some guy in a Cormac McCarthy novel about to flip a coin and catch a pin to the head from an air driven cattle gun or about to get trampled by a pretty horsey for no reason except I was here when the coin got here with the horse. I have a pretty good meter for BS, so when I hear what I think is the truth, it has a certain ring to it. I rarely hear a big ding, though. Mostly lots of little teeny dings. But, the BS was going off so much in the past I had to install a filter, you know? Yeah, you know…
Thanks for the dingalings, Miguel, and I look forward to whatever you can continue to do and I will try and help you as I can.
Very best—Bill V.
Thanks for the kind words and wise Gnosis, Bill!
Miguel
Love your intros Miguel! I just love curling up with a glass of wine and listening to poetry from the pleroma. You got my support. Just for that puff of gnosis every week that lets me know, indeed, there are others out there somewhere–just not around here (heckles).
I’ve been listening to several episodes with Nathaniel Merritt and especially his experiences as a Je-hova witness. Now, my experiences with the Je-hova witnesses is a complete 180 from what Nathaniel describes. In fact, looking back on the time I’ve spent with them, especially, with the insights I have now is very interesting. At least, I found it interesting, to you it may be worth a chuckle. But it tells a completely different story. I haven’t thought about it much, until recently. All these memories started coming back to me as I was listening to these episodes and I started putting the pieces together. But listening to Nathaniel, man, I also realized what a ‘bubble’ I must live in. I don’t know anything about what people are talking about when they talk about, what seems to me, as this seedy underbelly of religion and spirituality. To me it sounds like complete ‘looney toons’ stuff. I mean, I’ve heard that some Christian denominations down south were just bat-shit crazy–but I’ve never seen anything like that up here in the north. Like Nathaniel I was raised as a ‘Jehovah’ witness and stayed with them for about 10 years–but they just sent a couple members of the congregation over to my house once a week and we talked–what I perceived–as just talks about life. Very philosophical and I now perceive as being somewhat ‘esoteric’ in nature, in that, it was different somehow from the main-stream. But I found them to be some of the best people I’ve ever met. I realize now, they must have been very ‘progressive,’ I guess you might say. They always talked about how their congregation was different or better–in some sense higher than some of the other congregations in the area. They really ‘divided’ Jehova’s witnesses into different branches, you could say.
Now, their interpretation was different from what Nathaniel described–it was very ‘loose’ and very figurative–whenever I raised something that contradicted science–they always sided with science on the matter. Whenever I mistook something as being ‘literal’ they always corrected me, in fact, they frowned upon literalism. Often pointing out inconsistencies in the translation with new interpretations from the dead sea scrolls. Contradictory to what Nathaniel described, they were very Jesus oriented–I mean, most of what we discussed centered on the life and times and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, I always had this picture of Jesus as being analogous to the legendary King Arthur and we were, in fact, waiting for the return of the once and future king. I never once got the impression that they were trying to ‘sucker’ people into becoming a witness or keep them in the congregation against their will and when I left it was like taking the pebble from their hand. When I brought up the subject of leaving they said; when you feel you are ready you can just walk away. They always made it a point that it was their duty as a ‘witness’ to give their teachings away as an act of pure kindness–in following the example of Jesus. In those 10 years, I really felt that they had taught me all they could teach me and it was time for me to go out into the world and apply what they had taught me, the best I could, to my life.
In many ways, I feel right at home with Gnosticism–even the concept of the Demiurge strikes a cord with me, in remembering our discussions. Their belief, as it was told to me, was that we were put on this Earth by ‘Jehovah’ as a test and the ‘test’ is to see whether or not we can overcome our ‘shortcomings’ in order for humanity to be allowed to continue for another several thousand years or so. That if humanity were to fail that test it would bring on the end of the world and at Armageddon Jesus would return with his ‘angelic mafia’ and vanquish Satan into the bottom of an abyss–but Satan, in fact, could not be destroyed–only laid dormant. But until that time, Satan and his fallen angels were given dominion by ‘Jehovah’ to rule over the earth. But none of this was explained to me as any kind of dogma or literal belief system–I was told it was all figurative language. That Armageddon was an analogy for what would be, in our time, World War III–a sort of nuclear holocaust and the ‘witnesses’ would just be the remaining survivors, who would then be faced with rebuilding civilization. And the allegory of ‘Sa-tan’ as the ruler here on earth was used as a paradigm for the corruption of governments and to explain the reality of suffering. Of course, the return of Jesus who would banish Satan was seen as the triumph of good over evil. It’s funny, but I remember them telling me quite often that I had a very good chance of coming to ‘realize’ my place in the ‘new order,’ because I had very few shortcomings or was, otherwise, selfless.
I didn’t know what this ‘new order’ was, but I always had the feeling it wasn’t an after-life. First off, ‘realizing’ your place in the new order was somehow much more important than actually getting to the new order. I mean, how do you realize your place in the ‘new order’ before you get there? I just found that really bizarre. But they kept saying, one day you’ll be resurrected and you’ll be in the new order–a paradise here on earth. Of course, one can only speculate what the new order is or why it’s even supposed to be a paradise. I mean, what kind of paradise could exist with all the suffering here on earth? Well, it occurs to me now that the only context in which realizing your ‘purpose’ in the new order is somehow more important than ‘getting’ to the new order–is in regards to a metaphorical or otherwise ‘spiritual’ resurrection. In this context, this ‘new order’ is the escape from the matrix or the cave.
Now they talked about shortcomings and selflessness a lot–that was actually the bulk of our conversations–overcoming our own faults in life. You know, these little obstacles that get in the way from living a good life–and they were always small things–I always found that strange. Things like having to be the one who always wins an argument or how to accept failure and being a good loser. At the time, I just did not understand what they were trying to get at. But I remember several times where they did relate these ‘shortcomings’ to the ego and they said I had very little ego. I find it funny, looking back on these things, because at the time I had no understanding of psychology–but I always had the impression, even at a young age, that religion was related to psychology in some way.
Of course, it wasn’t until many years later that I began reading Plato out of a kind of sick desperation that I was just missing something out of life and this feeling that life was completely meaningless. I continued reading Plato over a two year period, during which time, I eventually received gnosis. Then in that single transcendental moment, I understood everything.
Glad you’re enjoying the show and thanks for sharing your journey! Nate explained more about his JW past in his book “I was a teen age JW.” I’m not sure if it’s still circulating, but I remember it being very fascinating. Like you, his experience is a soup and not all of it negative. Our greatest demons are not in some church or institution, but inside of us…in the end.
OK, I read the first few paragraphs and was like: this is Bernardo Kastrup’s latest book “More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief” in a nutshell!
Check it out: https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Allegory-Religious-Belief-ebook/dp/B01D27CBEU?ie=UTF8&btkr=1&redirect=true&ref_=dp-kindle-redirect
A Gnostic will …… ” scissor the veil of illusion that comprised the veil of tears that comprised sensible reality “.
How to scissor the veil ? Learn to move your centre of perception, outside of your coffin of flesh. Is there a difference between scrying and closed eyes meditation ? Both use a reflective medium of sorts and the question is : which side of the reflective medium are You when the veil parts ?
The Davies’ quote :
” Gnostics know that God is all and that they themselves are God” etc. etc. …… Ah, no ….. they know they are only an individual Spirit, each separate from one another and totally alien to the realm of matter. I do not belong here ; my situation is mutually poisoning, and if I become poisonous enough then I will part company from this agar filled petri dish of a prison that I have been dumped upon ; in more ways than one.
I sometimes wonder if each person has a Spirit, or are merely body and soul creatures which are no different from the beasts.
“they know they are only an individual spirit,each seperate from one another” ah no, they know they are only one devine spirit of many devine spirits that have been seperated from the One true God with whom we become one with again once we become aware of thus
What a careless one true God you have, to continuously lose so many parts of itself ; 7 billion humans and rising ?
You emanated from your mother, so does that make you one with your mother, even on the Jungian collective consciousness level ?
For myself, this becoming One is nonsense ; why fall apart into so many pieces only to coalesce again ? An exercise in futility or in effect, ‘cannibalism’.
I do know that my spiritual guide is feminine and perhaps, as such, it satisfies my duality of longing to be an androgynous Whole Spirit. Wholeness, not oneness is my preferred translation.
Perhaps, we are mere spiritual seeds cast abroad and some have found the ideal germination medium helped by Aeon Byte on this pile of earthly manure. A work in progress of becoming fertilized to become ……..
Good luck Daniel and continue to write your own gospel and live your own myth as Miguel says. Be a rebel and comment here. Keep questioning everything, and thank you for your reply to my comment. You are right from your side, as I am right from mine.